Dead Rising: Past Hours
by dax0042
Summary: This story tells how the survivors got to the mall and was saved by Frank West. Please leaves reviews.
1. Path to nowhere

DEAD RISING: PATH TO NOWHERE.

Aaron Swoop was a shy young man; only 20 years old, but he was not afraid to stand up for what was right. Well, he had one problem, he was now dealing with zombies. Trapped in the Al Fresca Plaza of the mall, with his best friend Burt Thompson trying to keep the zombies out of Weber's Garments. How did he come to this place? Well here is his story.

It was nearing the end of September in the town of Willamette, Colorado. Aaron Swoop was trying to help a man load a ATV into the back of a delivery truck. As the two of them loaded the ATV, three men slowly came stumbling around the corner of the building.

"Hey, do you guy need something?" asked the man, but all he got from them was moaning. So he went to see if they were alright.

"Maybe you should leave them alone man, I mean they look really drunk," Aaron warned. The man however paid no heed to the warning; he really should have listened to Aaron. Suddenly, the three men lunged at the man, who lost his footing. Soon the three men began to tear him to shreds.

Aaron stood there, shocked at the man frantic shriek and the sound of shredding flesh. "Help me!" the man cried, but there was no help for him, because Aaron took off running down the street.

By the time Aaron had gotten to the main street, he saw that the towns people were going crazy. People were running in all directions, some were eating the dead and some of the dead were getting back up and attacking the living. Then Aaron saw something that almost made his heart stop.

His father stumbled out from behind a car, holes ripped through his cloths. Parts of his flesh was missing around his neck, chest, legs and face. He kept moving toward Aaron with his white eyes locked onto him.

"Dad, you can't be alive... you're a zombie!" he choked on his words, as his father drew closer to him. Just then Burt Thompson came up behind Mr. Swoop. With a mighty swing with baseball bat, he smashed the skull of the zombie killing it.

Burt looked up at Aaron who was sitting up against the wall, sobbing and screaming. "Wake me up, PLEASE!" rushing over to his friend, Burt swung his bat into the head of another zombie that was about to grab Aaron from behind. CRACK! The zombie fell backwards as its head exploded from the force of impact it received from the bat.

"Aaron, snap out of it," Burt begged as he bashed another zombie in the head. "We need to get out of here." Aaron looked at his friend, his face frozen with shock at what had just happened. "I don't want to die," he cried.

Burt quickly helped Aaron to his feet, it would be unwise to stay in the street, but were could they go? They could try and hold up at Burt's place, but that would do you no good with zombies all over the place, but the mall, now that was different.

"Aaron, we will go to the mall, find a place to hide and wait for help to come," Burt said calmly, Aaron nodded. "But what will happen if they get into the mall? What then?" he gasped. It was scary to think of being trapped in a mall with thousands of zombies.

Burt frowned when he saw how scared Aaron was, so he tried to comfort him. "Look your my best friend," he said as he bashed another zombie in the head that got in their way. "I will be there for you like I did when Brett Styles picked that fight with you for no reason." Aaron remembered that day and Burt had to go to the doctor for standing up to Brett.

Aaron started to calm down now, but he was still afraid of the zombies that were around them. As the two of them ran down the street, the sunlight began to go down, and that would prove very hard to see the zombies in the dark. By the time they found a place to hide, the sun was already setting and the zombies began to act a little strange.

"Look, we can hide in that store," Burt said pointing to an hardware store. Aaron agreed to hide there because there was only three zombies wondering around the outside of the store. Burt killed each zombie quickly and quietly. Once inside the building, Aaron collapsed from stress and hunger.

"Aaron!" Burt gasped, "are you alright?" Aaron looked at him, breathing deeply taking in air as he caught his breath. "Yeah, I'm just tired... that's all."

Burt breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, I'm going to find something to eat," he said leaving Aaron in the back of the store. When Burt got back with some candy bars, the two tiered friends sat very quietly, as so not to attract the zombies stumbling around outside the store.

"Burt, do you think that your girlfriend is alright?" Aaron asked as scooted closer to his friend.

"No, she's not alright..." Burt whimpered sadly, "she was killed by those damn zombies. I saw them tare her apart." Aaron saw how sad Burt was. "I'm sorry, Burt."

The next morning, they awoke to a loud explosion. "What was that!?" Aaron shouted grabbing his ears. Burt ran to the window and saw that the gas station had gone up in flames across the street, but turned his gaze to the sky. "Aaron, there is a helicopter heading toward the mall," he said smiling with excitement.

Aaron and Burt didn't waste time seeing if the coast was clear, but there was no real threat, because most of the zombies had already gone to the mall during the night. When they reached the mall, they saw that the entrance was filled with zombies. "Stay behind me," Burt ordered, Aaron did as he was told and stayed behind his friend.

Burt cut through the zombies all the way to the security door; only to find it welded shut. "Great! Now what do we do?" Aaron asked looking around at the zombies coming toward them. Thinking fast, Burt remembered something. "Weber's Garments," he said, "it is the only store that has no windows, we could make a barricade and hold out against the zombies."

Aaron was not so sure that was the best idea, but he was going to stay with Burt. So the two of them headed to the Al Fresca Plaza. Along the way, Aaron grabbed what food he could, while Burt got the things to make the barricade. When they were done, the two tired survivors waited for the zombies leave, but that never happened.

An hour went by, before some ripped down the barricade. Burt and Aaron turned to see a man with camera hanging down at his chest, he looked like he had been killing zombies, but then he could have killed some poor soul.

Burt grabbed his bat in a fit of rage. "Damn it! Just what I need! Another crazy person harassing me!" he shouted. The man took a step back as Burt rushed him. Aaron watched as his friend was beaten back by the man.

"Just leave me alone you son of a gun!" Burt begged as the man grabbed his bat and took it away from him. "Knock it off you little punk!" the man shouted angrily, "I'm not here for a fight. Just listen to me."

Burt looked at him, but still waited for the man to finish him off. "You win! Do whatever you want, talk to me... Kill me, whatever." By now the man was beginning to lose his cool. "Listen to me. I came to help you guys. I can take you to someplace safe," he offered helping Burt to his feet.

Burt and Aaron excepted the offer and fallowed the man to the roof where he led them to the security room. Before the man could leave them there with the other people in the room, Aaron turned to the man. "Wait, who are you?" he asked.

"Frank West," he replied with a smile before he left them with the other people who were most likely other survivors.


	2. Until death does us part

DEAD RISING: TILL DEATH DO YOU PART.

Alan Peterson always loved his wife Kathy, even when he had the fight with her in the Entrance Plaza; and he still loved her as the zombies tore him apart. How could this happen to him? Well this is the story of how the Peterson's ended up in the mall.

Alan had been trying to sort out some divorce papers his wife threw at him, because she believed him to be cheating on her. That was a lie, he had been married with Kathy for twenty-four years. Never in his life had he ever cheated on her, he loved Kathy with every bone in his body, but now she was filing for divorce.

Thinking back to their wedding day, Alan wondered why Kathy was doing this. There was no reason for her to want a divorce, sure they had a few fights in their years together, but they always worked it out.

Just then, a loud crash from outside the house. "What was that?!" Kathy cried rushing into the living room. Alan looked out the window to see that a car had crashed into a power pole from across the street, but that wasn't the strange thing about it. There walking toward the car, very slowly was about ten to twenty people. All of them seemed to move like they were drunk or something, but there was a lot of blood on them.

Just then, two police car drove up to the crowd. Alan watched as eight officer climbed out of the cars and drew their weapons on the advancing hoard of people. They shouted at the crowd to stop and surrender, but the people kept on walking toward them.

"Alan, I don't want to be here," Kathy whimpered, "I want to leave this place and go somewhere safe." Alan looked at his wife and saw how scared she was.

Alan began to speak. "Alright, we-" but the sound of gunshots cut him off. Looking out the window again he saw that the police were shooting the people, but they were still coming. More shots rang out as the officers began to pull back. As they backed off, another group of people came up from behind them on all sides.

Alan and Kathy watched in horror as the officers were over whelmed, but before the last officer went down, he scored a head shot on one of the people. The man fell down dead and didn't move after he hit the ground.

"They're zombies," Alan gasped in shock. Zombies were suppose to be made up, but not these—these were eating the cops and now coming toward the house. "Kathy, stay behind me," he said grabbing a plank of wood that was leaning up against the wall.

Kathy was very scared now. "Alan, what are you going to do?" she asked fallowing him to the front door. Looking his wife in the eye, Alan pulled out his car keys. "We're going to make a break for the mall." It was the best place to hold up. The mall had lots of food, plenty of places to hide and even a gun store.

As Alan opened the front door, a zombie threw itself against the door knocking down him and Kathy. Looking up, Alan saw the zombie coming toward him, he tried to get up, but there was a awful pain in his legs. Then his hand brushed up against something. The plank of wood. As the zombie moved forward, it took all of Alan's strength get back up on his feet.

"You won't take my wife from me!" Alan shouted as he swung the plank into the head of the zombie killing it. "Kathy, get up," he begged, but his wife did not respond. Alan picked her up piggy back style and carried her to the car, but he saw that she had a bad cut on her head. Kathy must have hit her head when she went down. The zombies began to converge on them as Alan reached the car.

Suddenly, Alan remembered that he had dropped his keys in the house. There was only one thing to do now—run to the mall by foot. It was only six blocks down the road, but roads were crawling with zombies. "To hell with it!" Alan shouted angrily, then he took off running, never stopping no matter how tired his legs got, he just kept on running.

All the way there, Alan never stopped thinking about what he said on his wedding day. "Until death do us part," those words echoed through his head, but his thoughts were interrupted when he saw that the gates to the Entrance Plaza were closing and the zombies were coming up behind him. It was now or never, with the last bit of strength he had in his legs, Alan run and ducked under the gate as it closed shut right behind him.

At that very minute, two men rushed up to Alan. One man pointed a shotgun at him and yelled, "Stop right there! Todd, go check them out," the other man, Todd started checking him over. After a minute of doing so he nodded to Brian, "He's clear," then he came over to Kathy and started looking her over.

"She's not bit," Todd said calmly backing away from the old couple. Alan looked at him with a weary smile, but he quickly remembered her wound.

"Please, you have to help me," Alan begged loudly, "my wife is hurt. I need something to stop the bleeding." Brian looked over at a man wearing a mall uniform. "Freddie, is there a first aid kit anywhere?"

Freddie thought for a second. "Yeah," he said remembering about the kit. "I'll get it from the security room." As he left to get the first aid kit, Alan took his wife to the back of the plaza and sat her down near the gate. When Freddie came back with the first aid kit, Kathy was wide awake.

After her wounds were treated, Alan fell asleep by her side, not wanting to leave her, but the next morning would be the last time he would see his wife. As the sun beamed through the massive windows of the mall, Alan awoke to see that it was already ten o'clock and there were other people he had seen when he had arrived at the mall; there was even a man with a camera coming down the steps from the security room. He looked as he had no idea what was going on.

"Alan," Kathy groaned, "are you looking at one of those young ladies?" she demanded. Alan hated this, his wife was once again saying he was being unfaithful to her. He had no time for this, so without saying another word he picked up his plank of wood and stayed quiet.

His wife kept on complaining and shouting at him, until finally, Alan lost his temper, he began to argue with her about anything that came to his mind. Just then their argument was cut short when they heard someone shouting for them to run. Kathy looked back at the entrance and saw that the zombies were pouring into the mall.

"This can't be happening!" she screamed, to scared to move from where she was standing. Alan looked at his wife and saw that this was the end for them, but if the zombies wanted them, they would have to go through him first.

"Step right up you zombie bastards!" Alan shouted. He swung his plank of wood at every zombie that came close, but there was no end to them. Every time he killed one, another one just took its place. In the end, Alan fell backwards from exhaustion. As the zombie began to claw at him, he heard his wife's dying screams.

"Until death do us part!" he cried, reaching out he grabbing his wife's lifeless hand before breathing his last. Alan and Kathy Peterson died that day, hand in hand.


End file.
